One-shots, Omakes and Drabbles
by Malcho1234
Summary: A place for one-shots, omakes, drabbles and stories that I might make one day.
1. Brief introduction

Like many authors before me, and many authors after me, I decided to make a place for one-shots, omakes, drabbles and stories that I might make one day. I get too many ideas and I hope that by doing this I'll be able to concentrate on my other works.

For your convenience the chapters will have a nice, clean format:

**Title: **Self-explanatory  
><strong>UniverseCrossover universes: **This will tell you which franchise(s) is the story set in  
><strong>Main character cast: <strong>This will list the main characters, as well as the universes they come from.  
><strong>Short summary: <strong>Something to give you an idea of what's the story about.  
>This will be followed by the story, as well as a minor <strong><span>Author's Note<span>**at the end.

Let's hope that this experiment will allow me to get these things out of my system...


	2. XCOM: The Pawn chapter 01

**Title: XCOM: The Pawn**

**Crossover universes: XCOM: Enemy Within and High School DxD**

**Main character cast:  
><strong>**XCOM: **Christopher Redmond (OC)**  
><strong>**High School DxD: **Rias Gremory and her peerage before episode 1.

**Short summary:  
><strong>_Christopher Redmond was dying after a botched mission... Nothing unusual, deaths were a common thing in XCOM. But he wanted to live... Luckily, a Devil grants him his wish. Too bad he couldn't stay human as well..._

* * *

><p>The explosion was heard for miles, or at least that's what Chris thought for a moment before his body hit the ground, sending waves of agony directly to his brain.<p>

It started as a simple mission... Go to Japan, clear out the landed Abductor-class UFO, return home in time for dinner. Nothing new for Strike-3.

Only, things had gone wrong minutes after reaching the UFO...

The Skyranger's pilot had been the first one to die as a Heavy Floaters swarmed the dropship. Then the squad itself was pinned inside the UFO by Cyberdisks, Drones and three Sectopods, not to mention the Mutons and Sectoids that literally crawled out of the woods.

Oh, and the Floaters that had destroyed the Skyranger joined the party as well.

To their credit, the XCOM soldiers lasted for nearly ten minutes before they were whittled down to just two members - the MEC trooper, nicknamed Rusty, and the youngest member of the whole organisation, Chris himself. Both of them were on their last legs, injured, with their armor bearing the scars from the aliens' Plasma weapons.

The situation appeared hopeless and Chris had been ready to make a final stand before dying. But Rusty and Command had other plans... They had ordered him to use his Ghost armor to cause some confusion before slipping through the enemy lines. In the meantime, Rusty would follow Vahlen and Chen's directions and turn the alien craft's generator in one giant bomb, going out with one big bang.

At first Chris had protested. He didn't want to leave one of his friends. However, Rusty had managed to convince him.

And that led him to here and now. A broken and bleeding body that dragged itself away from the crater that was left after the explosion.

"Command... This... is Kiddo..." He rasped in the mic and waited for response. Only static responded to his call...

"Command... Do you copy? Over..." He tried again, to no avail. The explosion must have damaged his radio.

With a growl Chris activated the emergency XCOM beacon. He didn't know how long was it going to be before the reinforcements arrived, but he had the feeling that it wouldn't be before he bled out.

At least they would recover his body...

Turning on his back (and ignoring the spikes of pain that shot through his body) he pressed his hands against the wound on his abdomen where a Floater's claws had scored a hit.

It wasn't a bad way to die... And he lived a good life, if you could call fourteen years of normality followed by an alien abduction followed by an year and a bit fighting against said aliens as a good life...

Still, it would be better if he could live... If he could continue fighting against the remaining aliens and the traitorous EXALT... But it would take a miracle for that to happen.

Suddenly Chris heard a shout in Japanese. Weakly he turned his head in that direction, trying to see what was going on. Perhaps the local SDF found him?

A few blurry figures dashed through the woods, hurrying to his side. It took him a few blinks before he could focus on them... And when he did, his spirits faded.

It was a bunch of kids at around his age, wearing what looked like school uniforms.

Great... Civilians... At least it wasn't EXALT...

It took him a few seconds to comprehend that one of the students, a red-haired girl with European features, was bent over his body and asking him something in Japanese. Weakly he raised his blood-stained hand up and she grasped it.

"You have... Beautiful hair..." He croaked out. The girl's face flushed for a moment before she shook her head.

"Hold on, you need help." She said in English.

"Don't... bother..." Chris shook his head. The only thing he needed was a body bag.

The girl hesitated before squeezing his hand.

"Do... Do you have a wish?" She asked. If Chris wasn't in pain he would have laughed. A wish... What could a dying man wish for? Especially one that wasn't even seventeen years old?

"Yes... I do..." Chris said weakly. He could feel the last reserves from his strength seep away, his vision fading to black. "I want... to... live..."

Darkness took him...

* * *

><p>Muffled voices... The words, sounding foreign and yet familiar... The voices, they were new... Except one...<p>

"...odd..."

"...sure?"

"...physiology is..."

"...remarkable..."

"What did you... ...name is?"

"...Christopher Redmond..."

The boy's eyes fluttered open at the sound of his name. A groan escaped his lips as the light assaulted them, bringing a spike of pain in his brain.

"Easy there, Christopher." A pleasant female voice said as a soft hand took his own. Chris stiffened at the words and the contact as the haze around his brain was banished from the sense of urgency and slight panic. Where was he? What happened? Who was addressing him?

The last thing he remembered was the botched mission... The explosion... The pain... The girl...

The girl...

Okay, he needed answers to those questions from earlier. He could immediately rule out HQ as location, since everybody there knew to call him Chris or Kiddo. Only Vahlen, Bradford and the Commander addressed him by his full name.

He could also rule out EXALT capture. The collaborators wouldn't be so gentle with him... If he was captured by them he would have woken up chained in a cell somewhere, not on a... comfortable couch? At least that's how it felt to his back, which was mostly bare, only some bandages covering him.

Okay, it was time to open his eyes and finally see what was going on.

This time he went at it slowly. At first he saw an indistinct brown spot framed by red on a dark background. A couple of blinks later and his vision focused on a slightly familiar face.

"Wh-?" He croaked in confusion as he saw the girl from before before his body was wracked by a series of coughs. The red-haired girl quickly reached to the side, bringing a cup of water with a straw in it.

She guided the straw to Chris' mouth and he sucked a mouthful, cringing slightly as the cool liquid washed over his parched throat. Leaning back down he let out a sigh of relief.

"Ah, that's better..." He looked up at the girl and smiled. "Thank you." He said sincerely before the smile faded from his face. "Now, what's going on? Where am I? Who are you, and how do you know my name?" Chris shot the questions one after another.

The girl seemed to have expected that, if the lack of surprise was any indication. Clearing her throat she moved back, sitting in a small chair that had been placed next to the couch he was lying on.

"We found you bleeding near a forest fire caused by an explosion." She started explaining. "We saved you and took you to our building in Kuoh Academy." Chris frowned slightly. He had no idea where was this school, apart from the fact that it was in Japan, if the name was any indication.

"My name is Rias Gremory, and I know your name from your... Tags, I think you call them." She waved her hand towards the small table on to the side. On top of it, right next to the pitcher of water, was a metal ball chain holding two sets of dog tags. His, and the ones of someone who was a stranger to him, yet died to save Chris' life...

Reaching out he grabbed the chain and slipped it around his neck. The familiar contact of the cool metal against his bare chest made him more at ease, something that Rias probably noticed if her smile was any indication.

"Where's the rest of my stuff?" Chris asked, looking around. He didn't see neither his armor nor his weapons, a fact that worried him slightly. If they had found and deactivated the emergency beacon then XCOM would have no way of knowing his location unless he revealed it somehow. Not to mention that the technology they carried was so far beyond top secret and classified that it wasn't even funny...

"Don't worry, your gear is safe in the other room." The only other boy in the room said. "We had to remove them in order to treat your wounds."

"Did you tamper with anything?"

"No." The blond boy shook his head and Chris sighed in relief. If he was telling the truth then the beacon was up and running, which meant that XCOM was probably on their way to retrieve him.

Though it was odd that they hadn't arrived yet... After all, Chris remembered being quite torn up by the aliens... It would have taken him quite a while to recover to his current condition...

"How long was I out?" He asked, preparing himself for the unpleasant answer. He was sure the time would be measured in weeks, if not months...

"Ten hours." Rias replied. Chris blinked at that before letting out a confused noise.

"Yes." The redhead nodded in confirmation. "You healed surprisingly fast once night fell, and your body responded to our magic beyond my expectations.

"Okay..." Chris raised a finger in the air. "I'm officially confused."

"You were pretty torn up." The boy said, taking the lead now. "Buchou and Akeno had to use a lot of their magic in order to heal you."

"I believe that proper introductions are in order." Rias said, leaning back in her chair. "I already told you my name. This is Kiba-kun..." She motioned towards the boy, who nodded at Chris.

"Koneko-chan." The small girl that hadn't said anything until now stared mutely at him.

"And Akeno." The final person in the room smiled at him in a manner that was even more unnerving than he mute girl's staring.

"And we are all Devils, Christopher." Rias finished. Chris blinked before he let out a snort, trying to keep the laughter from bursting out.

"Right, and I sold my soul to you in order to live." He joked.

"Well... Not exactly..." Rias' tone was devoid of any human. Chris' chuckles subdued and he shot her a quizzical look.

"The price for your life was to be reincarnated as a Devil in my peerage." She said. Now the boy burst in laughter, and the glares that everybody in the room sent him did nothing to subdue it.

"Oh, I needed that." Chris said after a few minutes of laughing, wiping his eyes. "Sorry hun, I don't know what kind of cult you're in, but I need to tell you something." He looked up and chuckled again.

"I'm a full Atheist. I don't believe in God..." He hissed as a spike of pain shot through his skull, but he ignored it. Things like that weren't uncommon to Psionics like him. "...the Devil or anything like that."

It was hard to stay religious in XCOM... Not after witnessing the atrocities the aliens committed.

And it wasn't as if Chris was that religious before he was abducted.

Rias scowled at him, crossing her arms under her chest.

"I guess that you will require proof before you're convinced. Very well." Chris raised an eyebrow at that. This was going to be good, he thought. And probably hilarious as well.

Suddenly he felt a spike of energy coming from the redhead... Not like the Psionics he was familiar with... But not unlike it either... His eyes widened in surprise as bat-like wings sprouted from the backs of the four teenagers.

That surprise turned to horror as he felt something burst from his own back... No, two somethings, right next to the shoulder blades... His breathing quickened as he reached over his shoulder, praying that he wouldn't feel what his mind was telling him was there...

His fingertips brushed over a leathery surface, a strange sensation coming from the new pair of limbs.

From his... Wings...

"What... What did you do to me?" Chris asked, his voice betraying the mind-numbling fear he felt as his body shook.

"I reincarnated you as a Devil." Rias said matter-of-factly.

Devil...

That word spun through Chris' mind.

Devil...

For some reason the word morphed, stretched until it became something else...

Non-human.

Devil.

Non-human.

"Turn..." He was breathing heavily. "Turn me back... Turn me back into a human..."

"I can't..." Rias sighed. "The process works only one way. I'm sorry..."

"No!" Chris roared as he lunged from the couch at the Devil, his body's pain forgotten under the rage and adrenaline. Rias was so surprised that she didn't even defend herself before she was tackled to the ground, a pair of hands squeezing her throat.

"Turn me back!" Chris roared before he was pulled off Rias by Kiba. The Knight's speed ensured that he got to the two first, but Chris had received training on what to do in such situations. An elbow to the guts had Kiba release him before a swinging blow to the temple sent the blond boy to the ground.

That was as far as Chris got to before a pair of small arms wrapped around him and he suddenly found himself lifted in the air by the much-smaller than him Koneko.

"Fu fu fu..." Akeno giggled. "Attacking your King... I guess you will have to be punished, Christopher-kun." With that the girl raised her hand, lightning arcing between her fingers as she pointed them at Chris, who was trying to break Koneko's hold.

"Wait." Rias' shout stopped her Queen from attacking. "Stop... He's just confused..."

"Confused?" Chris growled, glaring at the redhead. "Make that fucking pissed off! Who gave you the right to change me? Huh? Who allowed you to deny me one of the things I was most proud of?"

"It was the only way!" Rias snapped. "There was no other way to save your life, and I barely managed to do it!"

"Well, you should have let me die then!" Chris snarled back. "You should have left me to die as a human being, not... This!"

"I wasted eight Pawns to ressurect you!" Rias jabbed a finger in Chris' chest. "Eight Pawns! That's all I had!"

"Oh, pawns?" The boy seemed ready to spit in her face... He just needed a good moment. "So that's what I am to you, eh? A fucking piece?"

"Gah!" Rias threw her hands in the air. "Akeno, bind him. I can't reason with him before he calms down."

"Calm down?" Chris asked as Akeno prepared her spell. "I'll fucking calm down when I'm human again, or I'm dead!"

"Why you..." Kiba growled as he got in Chris' face, blocking Akeno's shot. "Do you not realize the gift that Rias-sama bestowed upon you? A second chance at life! A chance to be part of the peerage of the most benevolent Devil! A chance to..."

Kiba's words were cut off by a scream of pain as Chris' eyes flashed purple.

"Kiba!" Rias shouted with concern before zeroing on Chris. "What did you do to him?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Chris spat out as his eyes shone purple again, a halo of the same color enveloping his head. The other Devils in the room could feel fear grip at their hearts, their bodies shaking as they fought their fight-or-flight reflex.

"S-stop..." Rias clenched her fist as she batted her fear down, using the anger she felt right now as a weapon. "Stop it..." Her voice trailed off as she took notice of a sound that was steadily increasing in volume.

A sound that was familiar to their newest member...

Chris let his Psionics fade, his lips parted in a grin as he heard the familiar whine of a VTOL's jet engines. The rest of the teenagers looked around in confusion before the windows exploded inwards, courtesy of the reinforced boots of XCOM soldiers rappelling down from the Skyranger that hung overhead.

Chris took advantage of the situation and Koneko's surprise to get out of her grasp before he turned around, grabbing the small girl in a chokehold. A squeeze of his arm blocked the blood flow to her brain for a second, rendering her unconscious even as the familiar sound of Arc Thrower discharges was heard and the other devils' bodies hit the floor.

* * *

><p>Rias let out a groan as she woke up. For a few seconds she stood still, her eyes taking in the gray concrete walls and the heavy-looking metal door of the unfamiliar room.<p>

No, not a room... It was a cell...

Rias' eyes widened and she shot up from the cot she was lying on. She absentmindedly noted that somebody had changed her into a drab gray clothing that was a few sizes too large.

That didn't matter... What mattered was that she was captured and that she was missing her peerage... She had to find them and escape...

Thankfully, Rias had the perfect tool for that. Raising her hand she gathered her destructive power, preparing to destroy the door and probably most of the door.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you." The accented voice echoed around her. Rias looked around, finally spotting a speaker and a camera in one of the corners.

"Give me one reason not to do that." She growled.

"First, the door is reinforced against energy attacks." The voice stated. "Second, I have my finger on a button that will deploy an agent that is commonly known as nerve gas in the cells of you and your peerage. Right next to it is a button that will deploy a substance not unlike napalm in your cells. Finally, you are under tons of rock that might collapse onto you if you try this." There was a small pause before the voice finished: "Those are four reasons."

Rias grit her teeth before willing the destructive energy to subside. The woman was had the upper hand here... And she wasn't just risking her own life, but that of her peerage as well.

"Who are you? Where am I?" She asked, glaring at the camera.

"I'm glad you asked." The woman said with glee in her voice. "I am Doctor Vahlen. Welcome to XCOM."

* * *

><p><span><strong>Author's Note<strong>**:**

**This little piece was born after I re-read Gabriel Blessing's SAO/Highschool DxD fanfiction Highschool SAO. I just wondered how would my favorite Gene-Modded, Psionic human react if he replaced Issei. How would he cope with becoming a Devil and having to fight other Devils, Fallen Angels and the like, as well as having to act as a high-schooler.**

**If he and the others manage to evade Vahlen's scalpel somehow...**

**You can see where that led me to...**

**Unlike XCOM:EM and Dust and Psionics, I still have no idea what the plot twists for this fanfic would be... But I know one thing.**

**The supernatural world won't know what hit it.**


	3. A Faker in a Hunter's Land chapter 01

**Title: A Faker in a Hunter's Land**  
><strong>UniverseCrossover universes: RWBY and Fate/Stay Night**  
><strong>Main character cast:<br>Fate/Stay Night:** Shirou Emya  
><strong>RWBY:<strong> Junior, Melanie Malachite, Militiades Malachite

**Short summary:  
><strong>_Shirou Emya was getting used to odd things happening around him... But getting send to another world after trying to help Rin with her Magecraft was pushing it a bit... At least this world will allow him to live his dream of being a Hero..._**  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Shirou groaned. His body, his head, his everything hurt, even with Avalon working its magic inside him.<p>

After a minute or so he felt good enough to open his eyes and look around.

The red-haired boy was lying on his back in some back alley. Which was odd, considering the fact that the last thing he remembered was being deep underground, in Rin's Workshop under the Clock Tower in London. He had been helping her with an experiment that aimed to recreate the Second true Magic when something went wrong and the world just exploded...

Wait... He couldn't have been blown out of the Clock Tower... Right?

Nah, he shook his head. That only happened in animes, and he stopped watching those years ago. Shaking his head once again to clear it the Magus stood up and dusted his clothes off. He had to return back to the Clock Tower, or Rin would get angry...

And an angry Rin meant a lot of Gandr curses shot at him.

Stepping out of the alley Shirou looked around, trying to orient himself. The street signs were all unfamiliar... And what was with the strange shop names? Dust and Guns?

Oh well, he was just going to ask for directions...

* * *

><p>He should have known...<p>

The signs were all there - from the cleaner air to the strange names of the streets and shops, to the strange attire of the people walking around... He should have known that the boy walking around with dog ears wasn't cosplaying...

What made Shirou realize it, however, was the moon.

The _broken_ moon.

And to think that he spent all day asking people for directions to Big Ben... No wonder they looked at him like that. He was in another world...

Rigt now the boy was recovering from his brief panic attack in an alley similar to the one he woke up in. He needed to calm down, he needed to think, he needed to make a plan for what to do...

First thing he needed was information... He had to know where he was exactly. He needed to find out if Magi existed here and if they could (or would) help him return to his own world.

Shirou's stomach grumbled, making him reorganize his priorities. First he needed some food... And for that he needed money. But where could he find that?

"Well, would ya look at that, boys?" A voice drew the boy's attention to the side. Four thugs were standing there, holding baseball bats in their hands.

"Looks like we 'ave another catch 'ere." The same thug continued as they advanced on what they presumed was a helpless target.

"That's what? The fourth one tonight?" Another chimed in. "Must be our lucky night."

Shirou suppressed a grin as he stood up. Beating these thugs and taking their money was going to be easy, and he wasn't going to feel particularly guilty for them.

"Trace on." He muttered the trigger for his Magecraft. A shape took form in his hand and his fingers closed around the familiar handle of his adoptive sister's weapon of choice.

Tonight the bloodlust of Tora-Shinai, Fujimura Taiga's cursed shinai was sated...

* * *

><p>Shirou whistled as he flipped the frying vegetables with a single, well-practiced motion.<p>

It was three months since he arrived in this world. After a couple of weeks of mugging the criminal elements of Vale and sleeping on benches he had decided to get a job.

Easier said than done, considering that legally, he didn't exist in this world.

And thus he had to look for a job in a place with less than stellar reputation.

Thankfully, he managed to find one that paid just enough for him to rent a room in a rundown building. And the job itself was something he enjoyed - cooking.

Of course, he did more than just cook. He used his free time to get to know this world better. Strangely enough, it was similar to his own.

They even had their own version of Magecraft!

Though they called it Aura and Semblance, and it worked on slightly different principles. For instance, Shirou had yet to find anything that resembled the Magic Circuits he had. Still, it was something that he could easily use as an excuse for his Reinforcement, Tracing and Avalon's healing...

"Hey, cook!" A voice drew Shirou's attention to the kitchen's entrance where his boss, a short and fat man who was easier to jump over than go around, was calling.

"One of the customers wants to thank you in person." The man continued.

"Tell him I'll come as soon as I finish with these vegetables. I need to make sure they don't burn." Shirou replied and returned to watching his craft.

The man knew better than to object. He had learned that his new cook took cooking seriously... Very seriously. And he had gotten more customers ever since the red-haired boy started working for him.

A few minutes later Shirou decided that he could leave the vegetables to stew without any trouble. Wiping his hands off with a towel he took note of the time before walking out of the kitchen.

"Where's the customer?" He asked his boss.

"Over there, in the corner." The man nodded to one of the more secluded booths.

There were two men in there, though one of them stood up and left before he could get a better look at him. The second one, however remained behind...

"I heard that you wanted to compliment me in person?" Shirou asked the man, taking a good look at him. Tall, with short black hair and beard with moustache, he looked quite imposing. The attire consisting of a dress shirt with a red tie over it, black vest and dress pants, only completed the image.

"Yeah." The man replied in a gruff voice. "If you're the cook, kid. That was the best food I've eaten in years."

"Thank you, sir." Shirou smiled and bowed to the man.

"Don't sweat it, kid." The man waved a black-gloved hand. "I'm gonna ask you for another plate of those vegetables for me and my friend when he returns from the bathroom."

"I'll do my best." Shirou turned around and froze. The man who had left the booth just seconds before he had arrived was now standing a few meters away, pointing a gun at the other guy.

The red-haired boy didn't think, he just reacted as he jumped in front of the man's target. There was a flash of pain as the bullet pierced his shoulder, the force sending him crashing in the table.

He could hear the burly man swear as he pulled something from under his vest. There were screams, gunfire and explosions...

Half an hour later had Shirou sitting on an ambulance's back step, having his wound treated. A partly destroyed and still smouldering restaurant was behind him and the man he saved was looking apologetically.

"Sorry for the mess, kid."

"It's okay." Shirou waved the apology off. The man who tried to kill his client had put up a fight before he got knocked out. Unfortunately, by that time the restaurant had suffered extensive damage...

It looked like Shirou was jobless again. Oh well... He could find another one, however hard it would be.

"I might have a job for you, kid." The man seemed to have read his thoughts... Or he had seen his downcast expression. "You as good with drinks as you are with food?"

"No idea. I haven't tried..." Though he was sure that with his reflexes and skill he could mix drinks... If that was what the man was implying, of course.

"Well, I find myself in need of a bartender for my club. The pay's better than this dump, and the uniform's free as well." He looked down at Shirou. "What do you say, kid? I normally wouldn't offer a job to a stranger, but you saved my life over there."

Shirou thought for a few moments. He doubted that anyone would hire him, and getting a job as a bartender didn't sound bad...

"Deal." Shirou said and the man grinned.

"My name is Xei Xiong, but you can call me Junior." The tall man said with a smile before clapping Shirou on the uninjured shoulder. "Welcome to the family, kid."

* * *

><p><strong>Basically this will have Shirou becoming a bartender in Junior's club prior to the Yellow trailer. Unfortunately I haven't thought much further...<strong>

**There are many ways this can go. Most include Shirou working against Torchwick, following his dream to be a Hunter. I also thought about pairings... It could go like gabriel blessing's In Flight and just give Shirou all the girls, or I can make him still in love with Saber, like in gb's Hill of Swords. Still, that's a bridge that I'll cross when I get to it.**

**As for those of you who are still waiting for me to update Dust and Psionics, have patience. Writer's Block, university, work and tough chapter that I'm rewriting for the fourth time are causing a delay...**

**If you have any ideas for similar crossovers and one-shots then send them to me, I'll take good care of them.**


	4. Magic and Plasma scenes

**Title:** **Magic and Plasma**** (Not final)**

**Crossover universes: XCOM: Enemy Within and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha**

**Main characters cast:  
>XCOM: Commander Bradford, Shiro Takamachi<br>MGLN: Lindy Harlaown**

**Short summary:**  
>When the Jewel Seeds end up on Earth nearly twenty years after the war with the Ethereal invaders they open the doors to the wide cosmos... And a huge can of headaches for those that believed themselves to be the biggest fish around. TSAB, meet XCOM. Play nice... If you can.<p>

_These are just loose scenes, in more or less chronological order._

* * *

><p>"Raising Heart!"<p>

"Set up!"

Those were the words that signalled a new beginning for Nanoha Takamachi. A beginning that would lead her to becoming the White Devil, the top ace of the Time and Space Administration Bureau who would prevent no less than three magical crises on Earth and Mid-Childa.

But that was another world, another universe entirely...

For in tnis universe what would have been Nanoha's first battle was interrupted by the sound of engines and the appearance of a massive VTOL aircraft.

The young girl recognized it immediately... It was a sight that everyone on Earth knew. A sight that put every human who deserved that title to ease.

An XCOM Skyranger...

The battle that followed after the six XCOM soldiers' disembarked from the dropship was anticlimatic. The beast went down after just a couple of shots from a Plasma rifle. So unlike the great firefights she saw in the documentaries and dramas about the War with the Ethereals...

Still, Nanoha was relieved by that. It meant that she wasn't going to have to fight the thing by herself.

Unfortunately, that also meant that she was surrounded by half a dozen XCOM soldiers

Doing the smart thing (and ignoring the ferret's frantic telepathic shouts) she dropped Raising Heart and let herself be taken into custody...

* * *

><p>"Alright little guy..." Akane Kaede, chief of security in the Japanese XCOM base said as she put her palms on the table in the interrogation room and leaned forward. The target of her attention, a "telepathic ferret", as the Takamachi girl had called it, was placed in a cage and looking up at her. A casual observer would probably think that it was a simple animal.<p>

The Psionic woman knew better. She could feel the intelligence inside the animal and there was no way she would think of it as anything but a threat.

"I know you're more than what you appear to be. So drop the pretenses and talk to me." She waited for a few seconds, watching the ferret as it continued with the charade.

"Alright then, I guess I'll leave you to the scientists." Akane pushed herself away from the table and turned around to leave. "I'm sure that they'll have a lot of fun cutting you open and seeing what makes you thick. I heard that they're going to reconstruct the old Alien Interrogation chamber so that they could poke your brain before that and see just what do you have in your head..."

The frantic chirping and telepahic push she felt on her mind that carried calls for her to wait made her smirk. It was easy to scare an alien that actually understood what you said...

* * *

><p>"Thank you for coming, Takamachi." The Lieutenant-Commander in charge of XCOM's Japanese base said.<p>

"Please, Kotone, just tell me what happened." Shiro Takamachi, retired Major of XCOM asked with worry evident both in his voice and on his plasma-scarred face. Less than an hour ago he had been called to the base he used to serve in during the War, without any explanation past "Your daughter is here".

"We're not exactly sure ourselves..." The L-C sighed. "First, let me reassure you that your daughter is safe. So far she has only been questioned and she has cooperated excellently... Your influence, perhaps?"

"Our society at large." Shiro replied. "Children nowadays look at us as heroes, saviors of the world."

"Aren't we just that?" Kotone asked, pausing to turn to his friend. "It was our efforts that saved Earth from the Ethereals. Brave men and women from all over the world that fought the aliens and succeeded in driving them off. And you were one of them, Shiro. You had... What? Twenty confirmed kills?"

"Twenty-eight before that Muton Elite got me." Shiro put a hand to the scarred left side of his face. The two men stood in silence for a few seconds as they remembered the horrors of the War...

"We got sidetracked." Shiro finally said. "Why is my daughter here? Did she turn out to be a Psionic or something?"

"She..." Kotone hesitated as he tried to think of how to explain the situation to one of his oldest friends and former comrade-in-arms. "She was caught on site with a new type of alien." Ignoring the horrified look on Shiro's face he continued: "A telepathic ferret, or so she and the chief of security claim."

"New infiltration unit?" Shiro asked as the two continued their trek through the base's corridors.

"Unknown. We're still interrogating it. Too bad we decommissioned our Interrogation chamber..."

"And Nanoha?"

"She's fine. We examined her, both physically and mentally." Kotone reassured Shiro again.

"When can I see her?"

"Right now, actually. This way." He waved Shiro deeper in the bowels of the XCOM base...

* * *

><p>"Gentlemen, this new information is most disconcerting."<p>

"Do you really believe this? A whole alien nation, spanning hundreds of planets and using an energy they call... Magic?"

"You forget the Psionics that both the aliens and Humanity possess. The first time those abilities were displayed in the field our operatives called it 'Magic'."

"Doctor Vahlen gave us a solid scientific theory behind the phenomenon."

"And the captured alien gave us a basic scientific theory behind their 'Magic'."

"Gentlemen, I would suggest that we postpone this discussion until Doctor Vahlen finishes her research on the subject."

"Vahlen's back in XCOM?"

"Of course. Both she and Shen jumped at the chance to pick apart more alien technology and sciences."

"This is all good, but we haven't addressed the main issue yet. Just how is it that all the aliens in that nations are... Humans?"

"I believe that we have all been avoiding that question."

"There is no answer to that question yet. Our only subject claims that he has no idea, and the Psionics that interrogated him confirmed that he was telling the truth."

"Gentlemen, I believe that we lack the necessary information to make a conclussion in this meeting. I would suggest that we wait until we have established contact with this 'Time and Space Administration Bureau' before we try to speculate on the genetics. For now I would like to put a proposal. I suggest that we increase the funding to the XCOM project. We should also prioritize the study of the alien devices we recovered, as well as the information gained from the captured alien."

"Proposal has been voted on and accepted."

"Excellent. I will inform Commander Bradford on our decision. If there are no more topics to be discussed then this meeting is concluded."

* * *

><p>Bradford watched one of the base's screens which showed the spherical portion of the Hyperwave Relay Station spin faster. He remembered how more than ten years ago they captured the alien communication device and used it to detect the UFOs.<p>

And now they were going to use it to find more alien artifacts... Doctor Vahlen had outdone herself, as usual, and discovered a unique energy pattern belonging to the Jewel Seed they had in their possession.

"Upgrades complete." A technitian reported.

"Initiating scan."

Bradford turned his attention to the hologlobe, the represtentation of Earth and surrounding space flickering occasionally.

"We're receiving new data."

A wave passed through the hologlobe as the new readings were added and it refreshed. A cluster of dots lit up and Bradford leaned against the safety railing.

"How convenient..." He muttered as the operators rotated the globe. "At least they're all in one area. But why Japan?"

* * *

><p>Fate Testaserossa frowned. There was supposed to be a Jewel Seed here... Instead she found an empty field.<p>

At least that's what she thought. Unfortunately she was far from the truth... And the girl didn't realize it before she was hit with enough electricity to bypass her Barrier Jacket's protections and leave her an unconscious, twitching heap on the ground.

"X-ray's tagged and bagged." The Ghost armor-clad soldier reported as he lowered the Arc thrower. "Tell Vahlen we've got a live one..."

* * *

><p>The blaring alarm did something that hadn't happened in ten years... It made every XCOM soldier, scientist, engineer and other miscellaneous personnel in the base freeze in disbelief. They all knew what the alarm meant...<p>

And they all hoped it was false.

"Unidentified flying object detected. All personnel, report to your stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Unidentified flying object..."

The voice that accompanied the alarm crushed that hope. But it also actedas a trigger, prompting everyone to spring into action.

Aliens were in orbit around Earth again... XCOM needed to prepare for their arrival.

The last time Bradford ran like this was eleven years ago, when the aliens attacked the central base in the United States. And he might have beat his record this time... Skidding to a stop in the Operations room he fought to regain his breath.

"Sir, we have a UFO in orbit above Japan." One of the radar operators reported without waiting for the Commander's prompting. "The Hyperwave Relay doesn't recognize the type, but the readings show that it's using energy similar to the one from the Jewel Seeds we recovered in Japan."

Bradford's mind raced at this new information. Unknown type of UFO, using the so-called 'magical' energy... He could bet his entire year's salary that the ship belonged to the TSAB or a similar organisation.

"Have they tried to contact us?" He asked and the operator shook his head.

"No, sir. So far they are only staying in geostationary orbit."

"Sir, we have requests for permission to scramble Interceptors and Firestorms from all over the globe." Another operator reported.

"Denied." Bradford quickly replied. "Tell them to hold back until I give the order or the alien ship tries anything." The operator nodded, turning around to transmit the orders to the Japan base.

"Redirect a satelite and give me a visual of the ship. Try to establish a communication channel." Bradford continued, ignoring the looks he got for that sentence. If these were TSAB personnel they might be willing to talk instead of just shoot as the Ethereals did.

"We have visual. Putting it on screen." All attention was directed to said screen and the image on it.

"This is definitely different than the Ethereal vessels."

"We have established an audio channel." The whole chamber quieted at the announcement. The veterans had flashbacks to the various vital points in the War. The first downed UFO, the alien base raid, the Exalt HQ raid, the first field deployment of various new technologies that made XCOM victorious...

"Patch me through." Bradford waited until the operator turned around and nodded.

"Unknown ship in orbit, this is Commander Bradford, commanding officer of the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, Earth's defense force. Identify yourself and state your intentions. Failure to comply will be considered a show of hostility and we will reply with force."

The command chamber was silent as seconds trickled in. Bradford looked around, glancing over the various screens and taking in the information on them with ease born from years of practice. All bases had reported ready to launch fighters at a moment's notice and their strike teams were ready to be deployed. The whole hemisphere had anything capable of reaching that altitude pointed at the ship, including enough ICBMs to oblitherate the Eurasian landmass.

Some people might call it overkill. XCOM didn't know the meaning of that word, instead calling it insurance.

"This is Admiral Lindy Harlaown of the Time and Space Administration Bureau, commander of the TSABSS Arthra. We come in peace..." That line drew some snickers from the people in the chamber.

"Acknowledged, Admiral Harlaown. Please state your intentions."

"We are here on a retrieval mission, searching for artifacts of great value and danger. I'd prefer to give you any further details in person." Bradford had a good idea of the artifacts she was talking about... The Jewel Seeds that were in XCOM's possession.

"I believe that we can arrange a meeting. We will transmit a flight path and coordinates for a shuttle shortly." Of course, the place of meeting will be wide open, with no cover for the enemy and plenty of cover for Ghost armor-equipped soldiers to lay down fire from in case things went bad...

"I'm afraid that we do not have any shuttles, Commander." That paused his train of thought... "We can teleport to coordinates of your convenience if you so desire."

Bradford grimaced. Teleportation... That opened many options for the potential enemy to attack... And even one option was too many for XCOM. He could only hope that the anti-magic field that Vahlen was in the middle of developing would be able to keep the TSAB teleports out...

"We'll keep that in mind. Please maintain your current orbit. Deviations will not be tollerated." Bradford reminded them. He needed to show the TSAB that he would listen to them, but he won't be pushed around...

* * *

><p>"With all due respect, Admiral..." Bradford began. "This ship is primarily a threat to Earth. I would prefer it if you allow us to take care of it. If you really want to help us then I wouldn't mind it if you help our soldiers board it."<p>

Lindy thought over the proposal for a few seconds. The Commander was right, this was primarily Earth's problem... But he must have realized that he was sending his soldiers out to die! After all, for all their technology this Extraterrestrial Combat Unit lacked the magic power and science to counter Testaserossa's golems and any other weapons she had.

"It would ease my conscience if I sent at least a few battlemages in along with your forces, to counter any harmful magic."

"That would be unneeded." Bradford said, starting to seriously irk her. "They would only be a hindrance." That did it. Lindy was a patient woman, but the man had been gritting on her nerves for the last month, stopping her from doing her duty as an officer of TSAB and she was sick of it. She was going to allow the foolish action, but she would monitor his men and pull them out when things went bad for them.

"Very well. I'll prepare the telleportation chamber to receive your troops. Arthra out."

Bradford smiled. It was clear that the woman didn't take them seriously... But her opinion would change soon...

"Strike Teams One through Four, report for mission briefing. I repeat, Strike Teams One through Four, report for mission briefing."

It was time for the XCOM veterans to take to the field again and show the aliens just what was Earth capable of...

* * *

><p>Admiral Lindy Harlaown stood in front of the commanding committee. She was called to deliver her report of the newest player on the interstellar field, the combat forces of Unadministered Planet 93, or Earth.<p>

"My initial assessment of their capabilities has been wrong." Lindy stated. "At first I believed them a small threat, but after witnessing their actions on board the Garden of Time... I believe they're a serious threat."

"Admiral Harlaown, you mean to tell us that the armed forces of a single planet, one with limited space flight capabilities and little to no understanding of magic, is a serious threat to the Bureau?" One of the men asked with a raised eyebrow. "Surely you jest!"

"No, sir. If anything, I'm underestimating their capabilities..."

"Please explain, Admiral." Another man calmly requested.

"When I agreed to allow the organisation known as XCOM usage of the Arthra's teleporters I believed that I would have to call upon the battlemages under my command to assist them. I was mistaken. The twenty-four men and women that made the four Strike Teams were equipped with technology unlike anything I met during my career. I had seen examples of it during my visits to the planet's surface, but i hadn't witnessed it in action..." Lindy paused for a few seconds, recalling the events in her mind before continuing:

"As soon as the soldiers were deployed inside the Garden they used some kind of device to mask themselves from scrying. We didn't see a hint of their passing before they encountered the first guards inside the ship. The Golems didn't know what was happening before the soldiers struck, catching them in a crossfire from a number of vantage points. We were able to witness the rest of the combat and the recordings have been sent to you... Sir, the way they fought, it was ruthless and efficient beyond anything I've seen. Even trained Mages would have had trouble with the numbers that these soldiers mowed through with ease. And in the end they managed to capture the culpit behind this, without any casualties among their numbers..."

It was an abridged version of what happened, but there was a part of her that still refused to believe it. The rest of the story was in the reports she had filed... Though she had omitted a few details.

Like how one of the soldiers, a heavily scarred woman that carried one of the biggest and deadliest weapons she had seen in a human's hands, had remarked that this was the easiest boarding she ever did.

"I see..." The man from earlier said as he reviewed several moments from the footage.

"With all due respect, sir, but I don't believe that any demands for demilitarization will be met with a positive response." Lindy interrupted the discussion.

"What makes you think that, Admiral?"

"The planet's recent history, sir. I was given access to some public information, and I discovered that these people have a reason to be this militant." She said, trying not to scoff at the man. He would have known this if he had read her previous reports... And he wasn't the only one who didn't read them, as she had the attention of everyone in the room.

"Their planet was attacked by a hostile alien race just over ten years ago." She continued without prompting. "The organisation, XCOM, fought and drove them off. They're regarded as heroes by the general populace, 'Defenders of Humanity', as some call them. Asking for them to surrender what they believe keeps them safe will only alienate them."

"You have a point, Admiral." The man admitted. "The best course of action would be to work with these XCOM, guide them to becoming more... civilized. Thank you for your time, Admiral." The man nodded. "We will discuss this issue, as well as the others you brought to our attention. You are dismissed."

They had a lot to discuss... Starting with the issue of the custody of Precia Testaserossa, as well as the Garden of Eden... XCOM demanded for one of them to be handed over to them, citing various legal arguments...

* * *

><p><span><strong>Author's Note<strong>:

**These are just scenes of this idea, showing the entire plot of the first anime as set in my view of the XCOM universe. I'm not sure what inspired me to write this in one sleepless night...**

**As usual with my crossovers, I add elements from one franchise and put them into the other before following the canon plot more or less losely up to a point. Then I completely derail the canon...**

**In this instance, you don't have underage girls fighting monsters and between themselves using magic. You have XCOM meeting TSAB and derailing everything. I personally believe that they would gather the Jewel Seeds quickly and study them, as well as Raising Heart and anything else they capture. The First Contact with TSAB would be tense, as I showed, and the following political maneuvering would be... Well, potentially disastrous might be a good term for it.**

**As you can see, the plot of the normal anime goes on quickly enough and ends more or less as in canon. The plot of A's would be drastically changed, maybe ending with the Wolkenritter becoming part of XCOM in exchange for Hayate being healed and the Book of Darkness getting its software debugged by Chen. As for StrikerS... Well, you can scratch that one out completely, since Nanoha won't be joining the TSAB. The spaceship might make an appearance though...**

**Replacing those would be the development of Earth and TSAB relations, the development of magical technology (and magical counters) for XCOM, things like that.**

**Maybe even the reappearance of the Ethereals and EXALT, which will make things very, very interesting. Especially for the TSAB, since I can guarantee you that it won't be Earth that's attacked... First, at least.**

**And here are a few possible new technologies for XCOM:**

**Magic Nullifying Field emitter: disrupt magic fields in their area of effect.**

**-Null grenades: disposable small-range MNF emitter.**

**Transporter platforms: allow for instantaneous point-to-point travel.**

**Magic power generators: take ambient mana and convert it into power. Can power magical devices, allowing them to work for non-mages.**

**-Mage module: an ofshoot of the Magic power generator that works as a battery for Mages, allowing them access to a greater Mana pool.**

**Barrier devices: extra layer of protection, like Nanofiber vest and Chitin plating.**

**Magic labs: allows testing of XCOM personnel for a Linker Core. Acts like the Psi labs.**

**-Warlock division: XCOM's Mages.**

**XCOM-made Devices would be simple and easy to produce in the beginning, without any limiters installed or at least they won't be used much. XCOM rarely goes "non-lethal", after all. Then they will be moving on to more powerful and personalized ones.**


End file.
